Bing APIs: the Empire Strikes Back

A look at Microsoft's developer site shows that it has been busy catching up with Google APIs. The Bing Search API has moved to version 2.0 and is now part of the Windows Azure Marketplace . While 5000 transactions/month are free, the pricing of Bing API moves linearly with 500 transactions/month for every dollar (there are different slabs though).

Use the Traffic API to get information about traffic incidents and issues in a specified area.

The third component is the Bing Webmaster API available here. Bing Webmaster Tools API Services supports SOAP, POX/HTTP and JSON/HTTP. The API key can be got by the Bing Toolbox website This is quite a surprising competitor to Google Analytics.

Overall while Microsoft 's Bing suite of APIs do offer some limited competition to Google APIs, there needs to be more development including support for Python,R and other languages. The documentation can also be rationalized between MSDN, Channel 9, and other webpages in the rather huge Microsoft Documentation universe.I also would urge the Bing Team to spend more thought on design and user interfaces.I would also urge the Google APIs team to learn from Microsoft's focus on enterprise customers, and their system of pricing.

Microsoft remains a very big player in the enterprise software market, and one of the few challengers to Google. Their success with initiatives in robotics and gaming points to a continued commitment to both depth and breadth of Research and Development. If you are a developer, you may find opportunities using the Bing services which are saturated in the Google services space.

Comments(1)

[...] Bing APIs: the Empire Strikes Back The third component is the Bing Webmaster API available here. Bing Webmaster Tools API Services supports SOAP, POX/HTTP and JSON/HTTP. The API key can be got by the Bing Toolbox website This is quite a surprising competitor to Google Analytics. Read more on ProgrammableWeb (blog) [...]